Trump winning could be devastating for Jamaica

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Has anybody been paying close attention to what has been happening in the lead up to the US elections, specifically what has been developing around Donald Trump?

The billionaire Trump's campaign has been built on reckless statements designed to release the nasty underbelly of American society. Trump's divisive rhetoric has been drawing record crowds wherever he goes. He has called Mexicans rapists and thieves, dubbed all Muslims terrorists and denigrated Africans to such a degree he now has the racists - and they are many - salivating like Pavlov's dogs at the thought of him becoming the next President of the United States.

It has been a campaign that has gradually exposed to the world what America is really like. Yes, it is a land of opportunity, but for whom? Trump's catch phrase has been 'Let's Make America Great Again'. Based on what I have seen so far, that's code for 'Lets Make American White Again'. That's the America many people across the world don't want to see again, the one where blacks were slaves and described in that country's constitution as less than human. That's the America where whites built their empires on the bones of the Native American Indians who have been made nearly extinct - slaughtered and cornered over hundreds of years by that country's first illegal immigrants.

failing economy

That's certainly not the America that Jamaica wants to see again. Jamaica has thrived on the success of those of us who have migrated over the years to that country in search of a better life for themselves and their families. Those there send back billions of dollars that have helped prop up Jamaica's eternally failing economy. It's not hard to see all that disappearing under a Trump presidency.

To many of us looking on this is merely entertainment, but it is really not. It's scary. If Trump lives up to his word of building a wall to keep Mexicans out and banning all Muslims from entering the USA, he runs the risk of creating tensions that could trigger global conflict along religious and racial lines. Relationships with the US partners in the Middle East would sour, and what then?

ignorant fans

The really sad part about this is that the US media has been covering Trump like he is the Super Bowl of American politics, exposing him to more rabid, racist, ignorant fans across the country; people who have been fuming inside for the past eight years that a black man, his black wife and daughters have been occupying the White House.

These bigots see this time as when the white man takes his country back and makes America great again. They see Trump as the man to do that.

If there was ever time for people of good conscience to go out and vote, it would be in the next US election due in November. Despite what we have been seeing and hearing, well-thinking Americans cannot allow this man to make the White House into 'Trump House'. They need to ensure that the Trump campaign that has been picking up momentum each week will only be speeding towards a monumental crash in November.